Just a few days ago, my husband and I ate lunch at the Scargo Café in Dennis.

I can’t go there without remembering a time, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, when my husband hosted a wonderful fortieth birthday party there for me. I can still envision where people sat in the room. Most, other than my late mother and stepfather, are still in my life. But I did wonder, last Sunday, about John and Sue Williams, who had moved to Florida many years ago after John had retired as the pastor of the Federated Church in Hyannis.

Later that day, I had a phone conversation in which I learned that John had died early in December.

The friendship that John Williams and I shared went back to the time that I moved to the Cape in 1987. We both volunteered at the Cape Cod Council of Churches. Then the opportunity opened for me to become executive director of the Council. It was John who called me to tell me that, after a long and exhausting process, the search committee had chosen me.

Even the good news had come with a price. John, as president of the board, and another council volunteer who chaired the search committee, each thought the other was going to call me to offer me the job; that meant that neither one did on the night that I had been told to expect the phone to ring. I went to bed with a throbbing headache, sure that the other finalist had been chosen.

Next morning, the phone rang in the kitchen in the home my husband and I then occupied in West Yarmouth. It was John Williams, calling to congratulate me. I wonder if he knew he was sharing one of the most exciting moments of my life.

As president of the board, or alternatively in other years treasurer, John held up his end of the bargain of support for the council. After I’d been installed in my new ministry, together, we cut a deal that allowed the Council of Churches to move its administrative offices into some unused space at Federated Church. The council saved some money and the church made some money. He also arranged for some young men in trouble with the law to do some community service hours moving furniture, books, and even huge plants that had accumulated in our old office. “We’re not a denominational church,” John said many times. “The Council of Churches is where we put our support.”

John Williams had a fascination with the biblical idea of stewardship – that what we work with is not so much what we own but what is our responsibility to care for. When he decided to earn a doctorate in the ministry of stewardship, he invited me to serve on a committee that would meet every month or so to share support and advice as he pursued his degree. As a result of his studies, John felt strongly that pastors had not only the right but the obligation to know every detail of how their congregations are supported, including the giving patterns of members. His conclusion was not popular with many church members, but it got him his doctorate. Even when the church granted him several months’ sabbatical, he spent the time visiting mission sites that the church supported, and going to church every Sunday in different places to learn new worship ideas; I’ll always remember the way, after he came back from his sabbatical, that he would end the church service by walking down the aisle with his hands and voice raised in a blessing.

John and I didn’t always agree. Once I was preaching for him and he didn’t like the liturgical stole I had chosen to wear. By good luck, my stole reversed to a solid color, and rather than have what could have been a heated argument in a busy church corridor on a Sunday morning, we compromised when I flipped the thing to its other side. I’d still like to argue with him about that minute in our friendship. But he also liked my singing voice and once asked me to share a duet with him. We both happened to wear black suits, and joked that we should call ourselves “The Blues Brothers.”

John’s companion in life and ministry was his wife Sue. Sue had her own life. A scientist, she worked for Barnstable County for many years in the lab that tests our water. She also was a concert-level pianist. John and Sue loved to go to the Chautauqua conference center in upstate New York. He would fondly remember how Sue could spend hours there in a studio playing the piano.

Clergy don’t usually get to hear other clergy preach, so it’s a perk that I can remember at least two moments from John’s pulpit days.

I don’t remember to what source he attributed these stories, although he did say they were not original, just important to hear.

One was about a stubborn ship’s captain who determined to stay his course even though it appeared that another vessel was coming right at him. Finally, the captain got a desperate message: “This is not another ship. This is not a contest of wills. You are steering straight for us – and we are the lighthouse.”

Another was a story about a young woman in the process of applying to collegea. One of her top choices sent her “the thin letter” – they were turning her down. But, as John Williams told the story, the applicant responded with her own correspondence: “I regret to inform you that I reject your letter of rejection. I will be attending your college this September.”

The obit obtained by the Patriot this week quoted this idea from John’s Christmas letter, inspired by one of John and Sue’s Shelties, some of whom I have prayed for at Yarmouth’s Blessing of the Animals. John wrote: “Hope for me is being like Gwen – barking where necessary, jumping into our laps when afraid, and licking our wounds. May you learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow…with a heart full of love.”

Goodbye, John, and thank you for sharing many special memories.

Services were held for the Rev. Dr. John H. Williams in Florida on Jan. 7. His 75th birthday would have been on Jan. 14, 2012.